Quid Pro Quo
by B9977
Summary: Axton marvels at his own powers of observation. Axton- and Gaige-centric. Rated T for language and violence.


Disclaimer: Borderlands series and all its characters belong to Gearbox.

Pairing: None explicitly. Will have slight Gaige/Angel and one-sided Gaige/Axton.

Rating&Warning: Rated T for some violence and language. Spoilers for Where Angels Fear To Tread.

A/N: This was just a brain-hiccup that won't go away. There is something that sorta kinda maybe looks like a plot, but it's just an excuse to burn off Axton from my head. Here I am trying to come up with best excuses to get Maya naked before Zer0 (I dunno, maybe his Decepti0n crit-sight can see through her clothes if he wants to) but that turret-thumping bastard will not shut up, so I decided to give him his own space.

_'Thank you, friend . . .'_

Axton was groggy from mild-to-severe head trauma and bleeding all over his left eye, but nonetheless he was quite clear that half his ribs were, regrettably, not ribs anymore. Move an inch wrong and his bone splinters would stab at the lungs or even his heart. Any other time, he would have snickered at how that was a sentence Krieg might fancy-which he almost did, but instead achieved a nauseating blood-spitting. He'd taken a full-body tackle square to his chest from a charging Badass Loader and another blunt swipe to his head before he could explode its arms off. While the shield prevented his neck from promptly snapping, it certainly felt a lot worse than being shot. He tried standing up and failed miserably.

It took Axton a little while to come back fully to his senses and realize that strange, high-pitched noise was not his brain rattling from blunt force trauma but rather sound of Maya burning alive. Left half of Maya's torso was on some unworldly fire, pale blue smokes screeching and scarring on her skin; she'd forced her Phaselock for too long and it was now backfiring like a bitch. It wasn't his first time witnessing Phaselock recoil-despite being generally levelheaded, Maya tended to push her limits-but he'd never seen anything this bad. Lilith tried to offer her eridium as what Axton imagined to be a sort of emergency med, but Maya refused, muttering in painful gasps that she'd sworn never to touch that thing again.

On a positive note, however, the sound and scent of smoldering Siren flesh had nudged Krieg into some semblance of life, who seemed immensely amused by the phenomenon-but then again anything burning alive amused the hulking Psycho, including himself. Along with Salvador, he was nothing more than a bloody mass ridden with an army's worth of gasoline char, bullets and metal cadavers; Axton recognized at least two different Loader gun parts stuck on his back. Of course such minutiae didn't stop Krieg from blurting approvingly-the Commando was somewhat frightened that he could tell the difference now-of kneecap funerals and popsicle grinders to Maya, who reciprocated the kind words by writhing in ever-worsening agony. Any other time, the sight would have entertained Axton to no ends.

"White corpuscles and meat full of barracks are too famous for potatoes! The meat must be mashed!" Lilith gave up. Exactly what she didn't seem certain herself.

Axton looked over to Salvador, the resident Psycho-berserker translator. The Gunzerker shrugged as best as he could while pressing a piece of torn fabric on Gaige's gaping wound, although Axton doubted it would do anything seeing that Salvador's broken hands were bleeding more on the ragged thing. He'd run out of ammo and decided that was a good excuse to do Brick proud. But still, when his sanity wasn't completely lost in a gunzerking rampage-a trait Axton believed to be the source of his rudimentary Psycho-berserker translation powers-Salvador was quite protective of the girl. Gaige grimaced a little, but her breathing came more evenly, with no further danger of bleeding out to unconsciousness.

Axton had to admit he sometimes forgot just how tough she was.

"Eh, he's just happy she's alive."

"You mean _burning_ alive. Stop talking about yourself."

"Burning and breathing / are one and the same function / to psychotic eyes," Zer0 quipped, as always, out of nowhere.

"And _gah_, you're not dead," Axton deadpanned to hide his startle. He wasn't going to fight the largest corporate entity on Pandora just to die from a heart attack. Zer0, indifferent to normal human reaction as always, glanced around at the last remains of Hyperion Loaders. His black, blank helmet dimly reflected dying sparks and irregular spurts of eridium.

"Robots are no match-"

"-which is why your arm's about to kiss your shady ass goodbye," Axton observed and not without some concern. Zer0 had small metal splinters, most likely from grenade, stuck along the length of his arms. Though not immediately apparent, he seemed to be having trouble lifting them. Axton also had to keep in mind that Zer0 being visible for any significant length of time was rarely a good sign.

The Assassin's visor flashed a strange symbol. The Commando decided to take that as something along the lines of '_thanks for worrying, I am fine and will now reveal where I hid my fifth fingers_.'

"Do not interrupt-"

"-but it's a dumb way to talk-" even with ex-ribs threatening his insides, Axton could not resist.

"-never mind, douchebag."

"Play nice, _hombres_," Salvador growled with some humor in his voice. Gaige complained how Sal's blood smelled like refurbished junk aluminum and boiled cabbage. Sal asked what a cabbage is.

Before Gaige could inquire back if he had any idea what aluminum was, Roland approached them after confirming there were absolutely no more Hyperion security measures left.

"You alright there, Gaige?"

"Just tired," Gaige replied in the most nonchalant tone she could manage. Nonetheless, Roland briefly examined her wounds; while it wasn't lethal, it never hurt to prevent infections. He stood up and wordlessly extended a hand to Axton.

"Thanks, but . . . oof, gimme a second, will ya," he tried to accept the aid and stand up one more time, but the exertion seemed to bring back that spinning headache. Roland let Axton sit down, cautiously glancing over the blonde's forehead for any signs of serious damage.

"We've got to get you guys back to Sanctuary quick. This isn't over yet . . . Jack still has armies waiting for us."

"I know I'm bleeding from the head, but that don't mean I've gone retard, chief."

Roland's stiff posture softened a little, slightest of grins adorning his hard countenance.

"ECHO Brick as soon as you can; his support buzzards should be on standby near the cliff. Great job today, soldiers."

"You're gonna make me cry."

With a fading grin, Roland turned around to step towards Angel. All signs of warmth-if there were any to begin with-had already left her, save for the ominous linger of eridium.

_Poor kid_. Despite everything she did and was, Axton couldn't help but feel sorry for her. He himself never had a parent but even he could say with utter confidence that no dad at all was infinitely better than having Handsome Jack as one (Axton immediately apologized to his unknown sperm-donor for comparing him to Jack in any context whatsoever).

"What kind of person would do this to their own daughter?" Lilith spat.

"The kind of guy that deserves to die."

Behind Roland, her pale, listless hand lying in a pool of eridium was all Axton could see of her. Even after the breakage liquid eridium continued to pour in, as if bleeding for Angel.

"She's dead. Jack just lost his only way to awaken the Warrior."

She was no more than a kid, and her only wish was to die. With a distinctly non-blood sour taste in his mouth, Axton eyed nervously at Gaige.

Perhaps it was their proximity in age, or simply Gaige's curiosity for any and all types of AI (from what she told him, there were AIs on Eden-5 "raised" to believe they were human beings and not AIs, all for shits and giggles apparently); whatever it was, Gaige was closer to Angel than the rest of the team. It was probably one of those few things resembling friendship he'd seen on this planet, and though he refused to call it that, he knew the "friend" in Angel's dying words referred to Gaige. She'd been the first person to realize that Angel was not an AI; they'd even afford a small talk, sometimes, after Angel got used to what Gaige found out.

For the same reason, Gaige took longer to open up to her again, literally. The Mechromancer'd identified Angel's heavily encoded signal and managed to block it (this is how Axton found out ECHO devices could do that) thus erasing Angel out of her transmissions. After the incident with Wilhelm's power core, she didn't go into a fiery fit of rage as Axton imagined; Gaige simply stopped acknowledging her. For the next few weeks the rest of the team stood witness to Angel's silent-but-way-too-obvious struggle to reconnect with Gaige; Axton should know of all people, as Angel would randomly wire him out of the blue to ask after her.

_'Does your boss know you're making private calls at work hour?' Axton preemptively inquired in one of his more sarcastic tones. He was slightly surprised as the sentence came out with more douchealocity than he'd intended._

_'I'm not-I just want to tell her I'm sorry. That's all.'_

_'Hey, that was a good joke! Call me back when you have a better one,' wow, he was on a roll. Now he felt bad for talking to a female like a jerk-well, a female voice as far as he was concerned, but that was enough for Axton._

_Angel bit her lips, pausing between words, squeezing in whatever sincerity she'd left. 'Please, just . . . just tell her I said I'm sorry. I won't bother you again.'_

_'Even if I did tell her-and I'm not going to-there's no way she's going to un-block you. Just get a new frequency or ECHO code or something. I mean, you're the giant evil computer, y'know,' he softened his tone somewhat, trying to reason with her. To this, Angel made an expression that was both puzzled and hurt._

_'I, um, I'm not. I'm not a computer. Nor am I that huge. Didn't she tell you?'_

_Click._

Sound of a clean gunshot tore him out of his reminiscing. There was someone else's blood on his face. Roland stared down at his chest, just as incredulous as the rest of them. Axton met his eyes fractions of a second before they unceremoniously rolled upwards, the only part that didn't fall down with the rest of him. Axton blinked but the stinging sensation in his eyes didn't immediately bring back his mental faculty.

"Roland!"

"Sup."

"You bastard, I'm gonna-!"

Without thinking Axton scrambled for his pistol-his damned hands felt like they've just come out from a five-year chryo. By the time he'd scavenged what few ammo there was left, reloaded his pistol while struggling up on his knees, Handsome Jack already had Lilith by the collar and gunpoint. He was behind her. Axton could not get a clean aim.

"What's that saying-don't pick a fight with a man with nothing left to lose? See, I'm gonna show you just how much _you_ have to lose, and I have the most powerful Siren on the planet to do it with."

Handsome Jack glared at each and every one of them, all exhausted and bleeding, as if to carve in his words; his normally smug voice was bladed with venom and real hatred. Gaige shakily lifted her revolver. Salvador picked up an empty assault rifle, tossed it aside with a curse and held Gaige's hand to steady her aim.

Lilith was fighting against something with all her might. Her tattoos shimmered erratically and everyone could feel the room temperature spike. The growing puddle of eridium at her feet swelled and bubbled in response to sudden surge of power, as if welcoming a new victim. Axton felt nauseated just looking at it.

"Kill them, Lilith."

He heard a manic scream, a blood-curdling scream of rage that no longer recognized itself, only what it hated. Sweat broke out on his brows and palms but beneath those skin a steely, sickly cold had started to spread. This was not going to be pretty. He also heard what he thought was Maya's cry, but he couldn't be sure. His hearing was failing, all senses drained by the sheer heat and erratic pressure boiling forth from Lilith.

"Argh . . . !"

"That Psycho doesn't give two shits if it's your head getting sliced in half! Kill them _now_, goddammit!"

"NO!"

Axton felt the blood on his face dry and flake away. Something almost crushed his eye shut as if to blind him forever. He choked on his own gasp, and it strangely tasted like metal.


End file.
